{"id":165439,"date":"2015-07-12T21:31:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T21:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/struggling-for-womens-sports-equality\/"},"modified":"2015-07-12T21:31:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-12T21:31:05","slug":"struggling-for-womens-sports-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/struggling-for-womens-sports-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Struggling for Women\u2019s Sports Equality"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"365.69937759336\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> The huge crowds watching the U.S. women\u2019s soccer team win the World Cup marked a moment of hope for Americans who lament the gross disparity between the support for men\u2019s and women\u2019s sports, but it\u2019s still an uphill struggle for anything close to parity, as Chelsea Gilmour explains.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-15470\"\/>By Chelsea Gilmour<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s Women\u2019s World Cup Final between the U.S. and Japan, which the U.S. team won 5-2, drew a record-breaking American audience for soccer, with an average total viewership of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/entertainment-arts-33422820\"><u>25.4 million<\/u><\/a> on Fox. And that wasn\u2019t just record-breaking for women\u2019s soccer.<\/p>\n<p>More U.S. viewers tuned into the game than any other men\u2019s or women\u2019s soccer event, including last year\u2019s celebrated men\u2019s match between the U.S. and Portugal during the World Cup in Brazil, broadcast on ESPN, which drew 18.7 million.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15473\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"33\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/USWNT_041415.jpg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15473\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?55ac53\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/USWNT_041415-300x150.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Women's National Team (Soccer), winners of the 2015 World Cup. (Via Twitter.)\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15473\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/USWNT_041415-300x150.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Women's National Team (Soccer), winners of the 2015 World Cup. (Via Twitter.)\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Women\u2019s National Team (Soccer), winners of the 2015 World Cup. (Via Twitter.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Potential reasons why this year\u2019s women\u2019s cup matches may have attracted so many viewers include the location in Canada (which has similar time zones to the U.S.), the fact that the match aired on Sunday evening for Americans on the East Coast (a popular time to watch sports), and the likelihood that the game will be star-player Abby Wambach\u2019s last World Cup appearance (<a href=\"http:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/2013\/06\/abby-wambach-passes-mia-hamm-for-most-international-goals-all-time\"><u>she has scored<\/u><\/a> more international goals than any player, male or female, in soccer history).<\/p>\n<p>But, perhaps most importantly, the enthusiasm of Americans for a women\u2019s team playing a game that is not considered a major U.S.\u00a0sports suggests a growing respect for women in sports (as well as a greater appreciation for the game of soccer). The World Cup victory was followed by the team receiving a ticker-tape parade in New York City on Friday with crowds estimated in the tens of thousands and drawing significant coverage on U.S. cable news channels. Commentators noted the large number of young women and girls in the crowd.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, the attention of the sports world again focused on an American female athlete, tennis star Serena Williams, who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/tennis\/2015\/07\/11\/serena-williams-garbine-muguruza-wimbledon-final\/30009093\/\"><u>won<\/u><\/a> the Wimbledon championship, marking her fourth consecutive Grand Slam title, known popularly as the \u201cSerena Slam,\u201d named in her honor after she&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/07\/12\/struggling-for-womens-sports-equality\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: The huge crowds watching the U.S. women\u2019s soccer team win the World Cup marked a moment of hope for Americans who lament the gross disparity between the support for men\u2019s and women\u2019s sports, but it\u2019s still an uphill struggle for anything close to parity, as Chelsea Gilmour explains. By Chelsea Gilmour This year\u2019s Women\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-165439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}